Dublin Airport, March 4, 2010 - At the always entertaining pre-season press conference
The Flyers have said they need their pitch 6 to play their 2010 matches and that
they are not willing to move to another location. The team also said that the 9,999-year
lease agreement it has with the D'ALSAA cannot be broken to allow another tenant use their
pitch.

Hangars On

The trouble started in February when one of Irelands leading lefties, Micko 'Barry'
Ryaner, promised at least 7 new softball teams for Dublin on condition that he is
given access to a pitch near Dublin Airport, despite the Flyers having a lease on it. He
demanded the ISA gets involved, saying he refuses to deal with D’ALSAA with whom he has
ongoing issues. Unless a deal is reached soon he claims he will bring the 300 players to
Limerick to play in a new Munster League. So far the ISA have refused to comment, depite
the recent announcements on softball teams closing on the Northside.

They will come

Commenting last week the ISA’s Councillor Marian Coconolly said the Flyers have 9,979 years
left on their lease and they could not intervene. She also repeated the ISA's offer to the
chancer to build a new pitch for them at D'ALSAA. In a 1-line statement released the day
before through PR firm Brand-y, Minister for Treasurery Martin CLennon said if other pitches
at ALSAA are unsuitable for Ryaner, the Governing body would build, with the D’ALSAA and
IDSFESA acting as intermediaries, a purpose built backstop on a pitch for him.
Limerick Development also indicated yesterday that they would be willing to accommodate
Ryaner by giving him a rugby pitch and they’d even throw in a free set of bases.

Cornershop

With his glasses perched on the end of his nose, and smoke coming from his ears, the manic
midlander today produced a photo of an empty softball pitch claiming it is severely underused
at present, but is essential to his own plans. "Look", he said, "we all know the Flyers
hardly ever train, and might only get 5 people and 3 kids out on a good day. They play 7
home games throughout the whole league season from April to September and the pitch isn’t
used at all for the rest of the year."

St. Annes

Reporter Leah Zerd put it to the crazed culchie that there were plenty of other empty pitches
in ALSAA that were available but he wouldn’t listen. "They’re all the wrong shape" he claimed.
"Some of them are football pitches, and have a slope along the sideline which would be
where the 3B line is on a diamond. Or they’re on a bit of a hill, and the sun would be in
rightfield’s eyes. The Flyers pitch is the only one suitable for my plans to embarress the
ISA, D’ALSAA and the Flyers and get rid of the whole bloody Leinster League".

Clan

Ryaner also showed the packed room a photo of another green field he claims is going to be
a new pitch in Scotland where he already has 200 softballers sheltering from the rain and
snow. "Another 300 softballers could end up here doing nothing much, and not in Dublin,
if I don’t get my way", he warned. When he was asked by Le Monde’s Barry Pollen if he would
let the ISA schedule his teams games, or let the IBSUA umpire them, he was defiant, "It
will be a cold day in hell before I let them near my imaginary teams". In his statement
before he took questions, Ryaner once again insisted he does not have a 'hidden agenda' to
turn the Flyers pitch into a baseball diamond, and "that can be written into any agreement".

Legend

Booterstown-based softball analyst Ian Clarke was sceptical that a solution could be found
in time. "The Leinster league will start in under two months", he noted, "and a Munster
‘League’ quote-unquote is a pipedream aimed at garnering some legitimacy for a handful of
players with dreams of European glory. You can’t trust country folk. End of. Look, the Munster
team is even entered in the 13-team UK National Softball League. How is that helping
Ireland Inc.?"

Sportzrumers

Flyers management also expressed their hope that part of pitch 6 could be re-designated
under the existing contract and turned into allotments, although D'ALSAA have indicated
this will not be possible. 'We got a new Gardyn last year' joked Ebbsie, 'and this year
we want to start growing golden carrots and maybe sprouts too'. Sensing this was the bit
where the meeting usually concluded with nothing actually decided Betty welcomed players
acceptance of an agreement which will see 10% less strikeouts, early retirement of up to
1 senior player from the Flyers and Slammers and a reversal of the rule dropping the
maximum height of a pitch from 12 feet to 10 in the coming season. "There was a time when the Flyers couldn’t buy a win on
the southside" he remembered, "these new measures are designed to ensure that we can look
forward to seven long, boring, going-nowhere-fast trips across the M50 this season".